Winter Foul and Fair

O Winter, you are harsh & rude
     To poor folk in their windy cot
Where uninvited you intrude
     And sadden more their heavy lot.
The blue-lipped Mother with her child
     Hugged closely to her naked flesh
Hears, shuddering, your clamor wild,
     And joins the dying brands afresh
With Wool the shielding arm is lost,
     The helping hand, the wedded heart
That held aloft the toppled frost
     And gave her life its ?? part.

But see the ruddy farmer’s-boy
     Confront the keen air with a shout!
His very skates a peal of joy
     Along the glassy pool ring out.
A merry sound of jingling bells
     That swell the cheer of laughing girls
Proclaims the joyousness that dwells
     Below the dance of sunny curls!
Old Jarl! You win no triumph here
     These happy spirits are a shield
Against the frost-elf’s icy spear
     And winds of keenest edge you wield.

Below the Wizard’s cunning snare
     That captive holds the lightning’s glare
Gay revellers—youths & maidens fair—
     Whirl buoyant in the giddy dance;
While winter elves in gobs[?] of snow
     Are waltzing on the windy court
To pipes the gnomes of Norland blow
     In freaks of hyperborean sport.

Poor little birds that cower inside
     The rooted hemlock’s whitened tent
Defrauded by the drifts that hide
     The seeds that fern & thistle lent,
What hopes can cheer your waiting hours
     Till winds have swept the hedges bare
And sunshine from your leafy bowers
     Invite you to their meagre fare?
But even here, despairing not
     A modest little “cheep” is heard,—
Thanksgiving for the sheltered spot
     That shields from harm the bonny bird.

Alas! On poor and weak alone
     Gray Winter wields his stinging whip
And mingles with their feeble moan
     His wail in mocking fellowship!